It was obvious that after Joey had been split into two, the fragments embedded within him had also been divided into two portions.
One portion remained with him. The other was clearly with his other Kryptonian half.
The bad news was that this other Kryptonian existence appeared to have broken containment—and was now slaughtering its way through Metropolis.
The official news broadcast arrived a step later than Joey's informant, pushing emergency alerts onto everyone's phones:
[Breaking News: Metropolis has come under attack by an unidentified creature. More than half the city has already been destroyed. The President has declared the federal government at DEFCON One.]
More advanced news coverage soon followed, bringing aerial footage and updated information from the disaster zone.
The entirety of Queensland District and New Troy had been flattened into rubble. Hell's Gate Island had become a literal hell on earth.
The greatest steel-and-concrete jungle humanity had spent nearly a century building looked like it was made of paper before this Kryptonian monstrosity.
The shockwave from a single burst of high-speed movement was enough to rip up the earth for dozens of kilometers around it. One leap alone shattered miles upon miles of ground beneath its feet.
The military sent in wave after wave of fighter jets and bombers. Armor-piercing depleted uranium rounds from rotary cannons might as well have been scratching an itch.
And the thermobaric bombs and incendiaries dropped onto the target achieved nothing except exterminating any remaining survivors hidden within the city.
Amid the collapsing ruins, smoke, and towering infernos, a high-altitude drone finally managed to capture a clear image of the creature emerging from the flames.
It was a gigantic figure.
Dark brown skin covered in jagged white bone spikes. Glowing red eyes swept across the sky, firing heat vision that tore through several fighter jets too slow to evade.
"Oh..."
The moment the live broadcast revealed the destroyer's true appearance, Joey and Bruce both sucked in a sharp breath.
It was Doomsday.
The most dangerous unnatural creation ever to come from Krypton.
Just as Batman and Superman had always understood—every fragile moment of peace would inevitably collapse into ruin.
This beautiful night, for some people, had not even ended yet, and the world was already approaching destruction.
According to Joey's memories, the other half of his split fate was only supposed to be a crashed Kryptonian.
So how the hell had it become Doomsday?
A Kryptonian driven insane inside a laboratory might still have been reasoned with.
But a rampaging Kryptonian bio-weapon left no room for negotiation whatsoever.
How long the military could stall it depended entirely on when the creature grew bored and decided to move on to the next densely populated area for another massacre.
"Do you see it?"
Joey pointed toward the center of the blurry footage. There seemed to be a faint golden glow emanating from Doomsday's chest, though it was gradually being covered over by newly growing bone spikes.
Batman nodded grimly.
"The fragment is with him."
The situation was dire.
If they wanted to restore everything to normal, they would have to retrieve the remaining fragment from Doomsday's chest.
Just then, Doomsday suddenly began sprinting at terrifying speed in a new direction, bringing another trail of death and destruction in its wake.
A massive rectangular section of Metropolis Park was crushed into mud simply from the pressure wave caused by the creature landing after a leap.
Moments later, it tore apart the entire Hobsneck Bridge, the resulting tidal wave flooding the whole Hob's Bay harbor.
Doomsday was heading south.
Batman's expression darkened.
"That's toward Gotham."
Joey, who had never been to Metropolis, couldn't recognize the direction—but Batman certainly could.
At this pace, if the creature continued moving in a straight line, it would reach Gotham within hours.
Considering Joey's strange connection to the creature, that probably wasn't a coincidence.
This is a shitty situation.
Batman and Superman arrived at the exact same thought simultaneously.
In this twisted reality, nobody had the power to handle something like this.
At the moment, Wonder Woman was the only one with even a chance of confronting a Kryptonian head-on.
Batman turned toward Martha.
"Does Wayne Enterprises have any advanced industrial manufacturing divisions or research facilities?"
Considering that the Bruce of this world had turned Wayne Enterprises into a sprawling cesspool of casinos and indulgence, Batman genuinely wasn't sure.
It had better exist.
Because if it didn't, the entire world might soon cease to exist as well.
"No."
Martha shook her head.
"Those industries were never Wayne Enterprises' primary focus."
Batman suddenly felt his vision darken.
But honestly, it made sense.
Wayne Enterprises had only rapidly expanded into cutting-edge technology after Bruce himself took control of the company in the original timeline.
And even then, the original motivation had simply been upgrading Batman's equipment.
The Bruce Wayne of this reality was a thirty year old parasite living off his parents' fortune.
With both parents alive and a life drowned in pleasure and excess, why the hell would he ever choose to become Batman?
Without Batman, there naturally was no Wayne Industrial Division centered around advanced technological manufacturing.
"No… wait."
Bruce suddenly remembered something Alfred had said earlier.
"What exactly was the meeting you attended about?"
"A corporate acquisition assessment. The board was evaluating a merger with several nearby companies."
Before returning to Wayne Manor, Martha had been in the middle of a meeting regarding Wayne Enterprises acquiring other corporations. She had only rushed back after receiving news that armed criminals had invaded the manor.
"I need you to go back and continue the meeting," Bruce said immediately. "Find out whether any of them possess advanced industrial production lines."
If Batman remembered correctly, the companies Martha intended to acquire were Queen Industries and LexCorp.
"And we need to do it quickly. Especially LexCorp. Their headquarters are probably already being torn apart by that Kryptonian monster. If we wait any longer, we may not even be able to contact anyone there."
Queen Industries had always been one of Star City's oldest manufacturing giants. Whether Oliver Queen became Green Arrow or not had never changed that fact.
And LexCorp was even more obvious. Batman had long since lost count of the bizarre anti–Justice League technology Lex Luthor had produced over the years.
Bruce needed to borrow their laboratories and manufacturing facilities for a short while.
After warning Martha to stay safe and watching her leave, Bruce turned back toward Joey—now fully bandaged—and Wonder Woman standing behind him, deep in thought.
At the same moment, Joey looked back at him.
The two exchanged a glance and immediately realized they had arrived at the same conclusion.
"Kryptonite?"
Right now, they needed a laboratory capable of synthesizing Kryptonite and converting it into weapons.
It was almost their only chance against Doomsday.
For Batman, this part was simple. As long as he had the equipment, he could produce artificial Kryptonite himself. He already knew the synthesis formula by heart.
And once the weapons were created, there was only one person capable of wielding them against Doomsday.
Wonder Woman.
The restored Diana.
"No!"
Joey shook his head.
"That's just sending Diana to her death!"
"At the moment, we can only assume this Doomsday is still vulnerable to Kryptonite."
Bruce was already mentally calculating the most lethal Kryptonite weapon he could build. It was the only option available to him.
"Other than that, we can only sit here and watch him exterminate every living thing on this planet—including us."
"Then let's begin."
Hearing that, Diana accepted the suicidal task without hesitation.
"I need a Kryptonite sword."
"No, Diana!"
Joey knew better than anyone that Kryptonite had never been a guaranteed solution against Kryptonian lifeforms.
"This isn't a joke. You'll die!"
When Joey had previously fought that other Superman, he had already discovered that both of them possessed a certain degree of resistance to Kryptonite.
The only difference was that Joey's resistance was stronger.
As perhaps the strangest Kryptonian organism ever created, Doomsday might fear Kryptonite.
But at the same time… Doomsday not fearing Kryptonite sounded equally possible.
"You have no idea how terrifying that thing really is. It's immortal—in the most literal sense!"
Joey's thoughts were in chaos. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he felt like he had grasped onto something important, but Diana's willingness to throw herself to death kept disrupting the thought before he could fully process it.
"JUst wait a second. You can't win. Let me think… there has to be another way…"
"Joey, I know you don't truly care for me that much."
Diana lowered her gaze to her own hands, her voice utterly serious.
"I understand that I've committed unforgivable sins. My hands are stained with the blood of tens of thousands of innocent people."
Perhaps the Diana from before would never have reflected on herself this way.
Not until she attended the funeral of another version of herself.
Not until she truly heard the stories of that other Wonder Woman's heroism.
That alternate Diana had been so perfect that it filled her with envy.
For Diana, the best moment to change—to become a hero—had been years ago, before she chose war against Atlantis.
The second-best moment was now.
Did she want to remain a villain…
Or become a true hero?
There was no doubt in Diana's mind that the monster was heading toward Gotham because, on some instinctive level, it was searching for Joey.
The only thing she could do now… was buy him time.
"Batman," Diana said firmly.
"Prepare my sword."